Steel Imports

Gold is currently up over 15% for the year, silver by nearly 12%. Both offer financial safe havens during times of war. All parties involved in the current geopolitical fracas are big holders of gold. Two of them, Russia and China are enabling the trade of the precious metal for key commodities.

"I have made it very clear that a bad decision with respect to the non-market economy status of China . . . would be cataclysmic for the WTO" Trump's trade tsar, Robert Lighthizer, speaking before Congress on Wednesday

Having slapped Canadian softwood with tariffs, and begun investigating steel imports last week, it appears - as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross promised - the Trump adminstration has shifte its focus to aluminum imports. Specifically, as AP reports, Washington has begun an investigation into whether aluminum imports are jeaoparding national security.

"If things are so bad during good times, 2Q-4Q is set to resemble a "Nightmare on Elm Street."Next move in U.S. steel industry fundamentals is lower, given scrap prices now in full-on correction mode, negative seasonality around the corner for U.S. steel mills, iron ore price declines, rising steel imports and correction in coking coal prices."

"We’re going to be putting a 20% tax on softwood lumber coming in, a tariff on softwood coming into the United States from Canada" said Donald Trump, and Wilbur Ross added that "we tried to negotiate a settlement but we were unable."

"If the U.S. does take protectionist measures, then other countries are likely to take justifiable retaliatory actions against U.S. companies that have an advantage ... in fields such as finance and high-tech, leading to a tit-for-tat trade war that benefits no one," the official China Daily said in an editorial on Monday warning it would retaliate to any protectionism unleashed by the Trump administration.

A communique from the IMF’s steering committee released on Saturday in Washington echoed the G-20 reversal, and said that officials “are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies" while omitting a call from its last statement in October to “resist all forms of protectionism."

Global markets were oddly calm on Friday, the last day of trading before the first round of France's closely fought presidential election, with European stocks posting modest declines ahead of Sunday's main event, Asian shares rising, and set for first weekly gain in the past month, while U.S. futures were unchanged.

At noon, Donald Trump will sign an executive order calling for a probe whether imports of foreign-made steel are hurting U.S. national security. The order will revive a decades-old, rarely used law to explore imposing new barriers on steel imports, in this case aimed loosely at China.

China will offer better access for U.S. financial products and beef in to help avert a trade war the FT reports, after the nation’s leaders decided last week in Florida they needed results on trade talks within 100 days.

"While there is a strong view that President Elec Trump’s “getting hard on China” stance will be a huge positive for the steel industry, BASED ON THE NUMBERS, we would argue that this was accomplished during Obama’s two-term presidency"

"Markets don’t have a purpose any more - they just reflect whatever central planners want them to. Why wouldn’t it lead to the biggest collapse? My strategy doesn’t require that I’m right about the likelihood of that scenario. Logic dictates to me that it’s inevitable..."